Fiber-optic communication utilizes optical fibers to transport communication signals which have been modulated to various wavelengths of light. This allows for transmission over longer distances and with higher bandwidths than conventional wire cables, because optical fibers have less signal loss than conventional cables.
Nevertheless, the fabrication of photonic crystal fibers is generally more difficult than traditional optical fibers. Typically, 105 to 106 capillary tubes and solid rods are manually assembled into a preform. The preform is then heated and drawn or pulled into the final optical fiber. This process is typically labor intensive and costly. Moreover, it may be difficult to draw such preforms without inducing defects, which may make the resulting fibers fragile and unsuitable for use at certain optical wavelengths.
Various alternative approaches have been attempted to create optical fibers. In a paper entitled “Complex air-structured optical fiber drawn from a 3D-printed preform” by Cook et al. (Optics Letters, Vol. 40, Issue 17, pp. 3966-3969 (2015)), an alternative approach to making structured fibers is discussed which utilizes a 3D printer to design and print a structured preform that is then drawn to fiber. An FDM printing method was used to print a preform using a transparent thermosetting polymer that is subsequently drawn to fiber. The preform fiber geometry was a solid core surrounded by 6 air holes. A commercially available 3D printing filament was used consisting of a polystyrene mixture containing styrene-butadiene-copolymer and polystyrene.
Despite the existence of such approaches, new techniques for creating optical fibers may be desirable to provide improved robustness, longevity, as well as operation at different optical wavelengths.